Gonzalez in hurry to make up for lost time

After a season in limbo, the speedy Chilean winger has finally been given a work permit and is desperate to prove his worth to Liverpool. By Jonathan Northcroft

MARK GONZALEZ is Hispanic and can run very fast. That his nickname is Speedy seems compulsory. Much else about Liverpool’s new winger is unexpected. An incident that caused his premature “retirement” from internationals and a media frenzy in Chile make him the most clean-cut bad boy you will meet. Then there is his provenance. Gonzalez is only 22 and has spent all his short career playing in Santiago and provincial Spain, yet his English is perfect and his knowledge of the British game considerable, the consequence of being born and brought up in Durban, South Africa.

“My father was a footballer. He played in Chile and was signed by a club in South Africa, and that’s the reason I was born there and my English is so good,” Gonzalez explains. “He was a right-back who played for Chile and two of my great-grandfathers were footballers, they were left- footed like